Experts studying al Qaeda underwear bomb

By Adam Goldman -
Associated Press -
Tuesday, May 8, 2012

WASHINGTON — U.S. bomb experts are picking apart a sophisticated new al Qaeda improvised explosive device, a top Obama administration counterterrorism official said Tuesday, to determine if it could have slipped past airport security and taken down a commercial airplane.

Officials told the Associated Press a day earlier that discovery of the unexploded bomb represented an intelligence prize resulting from a covert CIA operation in Yemen, saying that the intercept thwarted a suicide mission around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it. The device is an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. Officials said this new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger’s underwear, but this time al Qaeda developed a more refined detonation system.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, said Tuesday the discovery shows al Qaeda remains a threat to U.S. security a year after bin Laden’s assassination. And he attributed the breakthrough to “very close cooperation with our international partners.”

“We’re continuing to investigate who might have been associated with the construction of it as well as plans to carry out an attack,” Brennan said. “And so we’re confident that this device and any individual that might have been designed to use it are no longer a threat to the American people.”

On the question of whether the device could have been gone undetected through airport security, Brennan said, “It was a threat from a standpoint of the design.” He also said there was no intelligence indicating it was going to be used in an attack to coincide with the May 2 anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

Rep. Peter King, New York Republican, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday that “a number of countries” provided information and cooperation that helped foil the plot. He said he had no information on the would-be bomber, but that White House officials had told him “He is no longer of concern,” meaning no longer any threat to the U.S.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters Monday night that she had been briefed Monday about an “undetectable” device that was “going to be on a U.S.-bound airliner.”

There were no immediate plans to change security procedures at U.S. airports.

U.S. officials declined to say where the CIA seized the bomb. The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or purchased plane tickets when the CIA seized the bomb, officials said. It was not immediately clear what happened to the would-be bomber.

President Barack Obama had been monitoring the operation since last month, the White House said Monday evening. White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the president was assured the device posed no threat to the public.

“The president thanks all intelligence and counterterrorism professionals involved for their outstanding work and for serving with the extraordinary skill and commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand,” Hayden said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: “The device did not appear to pose a threat to the public air service, but the plot itself indicates that these terrorist keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people. And it a reminder of how we have to keep vigilant.” Clinton spoke during a news conference Tuesday in New Delhi with Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.

The operation unfolded even as the White House and Homeland Security Department assured the public that they knew of no al Qaeda plots against the U.S. around the anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

On May 1, the Homeland Security Department said, “We have no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the U.S. tied to the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.”